


The New Normal

by keepklancing (kateshines)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fix-it fic, Gen, How do we know you're the real Keith and not his bigger cooler grizzled older brother?, M/M, a continuation of season six, pre-klance, season six fix-it fic, starts right as season six ends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-05-24 04:28:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14947580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kateshines/pseuds/keepklancing
Summary: “How do we know you're the real Keith and not his bigger, cooler, grizzled older brother?”With his heart in a twist and with the exhaustion and adrenaline weighing him down, he approached the conversation with the highest degree of eloquence and social dignity he was capable of in that moment.Absolutely none whatsoever.“I don’t have time for this, Lance!”[Post season six fix-it fic. It stands on its own but I plan to continue this if there's enough interest!]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first thing I've ever written for the Voltron fandom. Aaaah!! I had been messing around with a few ideas for the Voltron fandom, but after season six, I felt as if we all needed a little bit of softness.

It didn’t surprise Keith in the slightest to see that Lance was the first to approach him as he stepped out of the Altean pod when he first returned to the team. He had always figured it would be him. He and Lance had been close since their impromptu journey into outer space had begun.

Now, ‘close’ didn’t always mean ‘friendly’. Lance hated Keith at first – he thought he was an arrogant prick - and Keith admittedly didn’t do much to change his mind. Somewhere along the way though, their banter became a little less barbed and a little more playful. When picturing what his reunion with the team would look like, he had imagined that it would be much like his departure. Crying. Hugs. Heartfelt reassurances. And he had always imagined Lance being at the forefront of it all.

Instead of what he had always pictured, however, he got, “How do we know you're the real Keith and not his bigger, cooler, grizzled older brother?”

It had been two years since he had spoken to anyone other than Krolia and - no offense meant to his mother – but he definitely took after her in that he wasn’t the most socially adept individual. They both tended to use bluntness to get their point across, and dancing around unspoken words wasn’t a skill that either of them had.

So.

With his heart in a twist and with the exhaustion and adrenaline weighing him down, he approached the conversation with the highest degree of eloquence and social dignity he was capable of in that moment.

Absolutely none whatsoever.

“I don’t have time for this, Lance!”

(Later, Keith asked himself,  _What did I even mean by ‘this’?_ _Time to playfully banter with Lance? Time to lean into the hug Keith retroactively realized Lance had offered? Time to breathe in the heart-achingly familiar smell of Altean shampoo in his hair? Time to mentally unpack exactly what Lance meant by “grizzled”?_ )

And in the following few hours, between their battle with the Galra generals and the showdown with Shiro and the fight with Lotor’s giant mecha and sacrificing the castle-ship, Keith honestly didn’t have time to stop and catch up with them. His return to the team had been a hurried decision made out of necessity. There was no time to question it – Shiro was out of commission, the Black Lion needed a pilot, Keith could pilot her, and he stepped in. That was it. Not to say he wasn’t happy to see his old team – quite the opposite – but there hadn’t exactly been time for touching reunions.

Which is why, as the team was making camp that evening, Keith felt a little bit lost about how to approach them.

Two years was a long time. He had gotten used to missing the team. Even in the constant flashbacks of his life on the space-whale, which involved the team more and more frequently towards the end of their two year stay, didn’t help him feel closer to them while he was away.

To the team, however, he had only been gone a few months. Things hadn’t changed for them like they had for him.

So, Keith took the easy way out. Shiro was resting and Krolia was exchanging intel with Pidge, so he went about setting up a shelter for himself in lieu of speaking to anyone. He gathered up extra supplies from his lion – a tarp, a few lengths of rope, a handful of nails – and settled down onto the ground to begin building, which he hoped would give off a signal to the others that he’d much rather be left to his thoughts. But of course Lance, being the exact same stubborn brand of idiot that Keith remembered, approached him.

“Hey, man.”

Keith looked up but avoided eye contact, preemptively kicking himself for whatever was about to come out of his mouth.

“What.”

He internally kicked himself again. _Dammit Kogane._

Lance shuffled from foot to foot. “I didn’t get to say this earlier because of the… y’know… battle, and all that, but… I just wanted to say, welcome back.”

Keith met his eyes and saw a slight blush across the other man’s tan cheeks. “Uh. Thanks, Lance.”

Keith honestly expected him to leave at that point, so he returned to his task of setting up his make-shift tent and arched an eyebrow in surprise when Lance sat down next to him. “So, whatcha doing?”

He fought back the urge to roll his eyes. “Setting up a tent.”

“Wow. You’re really not good at this whole socialization thing anymore, are you? We had made such progress with you, and it all came undone over a couple of months. What a shame.”

Now, Keith recognized that his tone was joking, but he found that he could only sigh heavily as he picked up a nail from his pile. “I’ve been gone for over two years, Lance.”

“Two years? Nonono, Keith, you’ve only been gone from the team for three months. Geez. Do they not believe in keeping a calendar at the Blade of Marmora or something?”

Keith remained silent as he worked on pounding the nail into the ground to secure the corner of his tarp. An unreadable expression came over Lance’s face, and Keith could practically hear the gears turning inside his head. Keith found that he didn't like Lance's expression when he opened his mouth again. “Oh. Oh, no, _Keith_ … Keith, you said time worked differently where you were. It really has been two years for you, hasn’t it?” He looked up just as Lance’s eyes began to sweep over Keith’s form as if taking inventory of the changes to his body. “That’s why you’re taller. That’s why you look so different now. Oh my god…”

Seeing that something dangerously close to pity entered Lance’s eyes, Keith turned back to his task. “Lance, it’s really not a big de-”

He was promptly cut off with a smothering hug. “Keith. _Keith_. I’m so sorry.”

The hug was awkward and at a weird angle, since he was crouched over his tarp when Lance wrapped his arms around him, but he didn’t find that he minded. In fact, he dropped the contents of his hands and returned the hug without giving it much thought.

And just like that, Keith started to feel normal again.


	2. Chapter 2

Lance woke slowly that morning from dreams of space whales and cosmic wolves. He turned over quickly to push himself up on his elbows and ran a hand through his hair as the events of the previous day washed over him.

 

_Lance was already in a bit of a daze that day as he watched Allura and Lotor fly off into the ship they had built together. His feelings of jealousy and helplessness had started to overwhelm him, and he really didn't have anyone to go to about it. Hunk and Pidge had made fun of him. Shiro was acting off. Coran was too close to the Princess to be of any help, and god forbid he actually approach the Princess herself about it - sure, he was desperate for her attention, but he knew he didn't really have a shot with her. Especially not with the way she and Lotor were behaving around each other - but he didn't want to burden her with his problems when he knew deep down that his feelings were unrequited._

_When the castle’s sensors had gone off and they were warned that an Altean ship was approaching, Lance was filled with cautious curiosity. At least whatever this was would be a good distraction from his misery over Allura. But once the hailing frequency had been picked up and Keith’s face appeared on the screen, Lance’s brain short-circuited._

_He hadn't seen him, not even over a video monitor, in weeks. He was the last person he had expected to see on the screen, and approaching them in an Altean ship of all things. Lance still wasn’t quite sure how he had commandeered it not to mention how he could fly the thing so effortlessly, the talented bastard, but he digresses._

_As soon as he was able to process that Keith’s face was on the giant screen in front of him, his first thought was, Oh wow, I had forgotten how attractive Keith is. Quickly followed by, His hair is longer. He looks rugged. Oh god, he got so buff, I bet he could throw me around like I weigh nothing at all._

_And then, once his conscious brain caught up to his subconscious thoughts, Oh. Oh no, this is **bad**._

_He was only able to stammer out, “Does he look… bigger to you guys? He’s bigger, right?”_

And that was only the start of the chaos.

 

Hearing commotion from outside his lion, Lance rolled out of his cot and pulled on his jeans and t-shirt. It was relatively warm on this planet, so he left his jacket hanging in his lion and wandered down the ramp to the others.

He spared a moment to pet Kaltenecker - he had tied her to a rope held down by a stake in the ground last night, giving her room to move around and chew on the local flora without allowing her to wander off. Then he set off to the central camp in the middle of their wide circle of lions a few hundred feet away.

Coran was already up and as energetic as ever, greeting Lance jovially as he flitted around the area gathering rocks and sticks. “Good morning, Lance! How did you sleep? Well, I hope?”

“I slept okay.” He scuffed the toe of his shoe against a rock. “Whatcha doing?”

“Building a fire, of course! How else would we cook breakfast?”

Breakfast? Does that mean someone has food? Knowing Coran, he was just going to attempt to fry up some food goo into a pancake-like consistency again. Lance shrugged but didn’t question him further about it. He honestly didn’t want to know. He was holding out hope that someone had managed to find bacon and eggs, and he chose to remain in denial until told otherwise.

Having nothing better to do, Lance wandered back to his lion and moved Kaltenecker’s stake into the shade to protect her from the midafternoon sun, then fetched a bucket and settled down to milk her. It had been a few days since he had milked her, after all, and she would start to experience pain if he didn’t milk her soon.

He soon fell into a quiet rhythm and let his mind wander back to the events of the previous day. Keith returning to the team. Finding out about Lotor’s betrayal. Confronting him, the subsequent battle, hurtling Keith through a wormhole after Shiro, Keith’s return, finding out that the Shiro they had known for the past year was a fake.

And as if all of that wasn’t enough, Keith had apparently been stuck in a weird space-time pocket for two years before he had returned to the team. _Two quiznacking years._ No wonder he looked so different now.

Keith had explained everything to him the night before. Finding his mom on a Blade mission, his mom saving him, going to the quantum zone, losing their ship, _living on a freaking whale for two years_ , and visiting a hidden Altean colony. It was crazy. It was the kind of crazy that Lance couldn’t make up even if he tried.

Lance was broken out of his reverie by someone clearing their throat.

Keith stood a few feet away with his wolf seated obediently at his feet.

As his eyes met Keith’s, the first thing he noticed is the odd look on his face. When Keith opened his mouth, he then noticed the way his throat seemed to stick on his words.

“I, uh… I didn’t know you knew how to milk a cow.”

Honestly a little confused about the blush across Keith’s pale cheeks, he raised an eyebrow and replied, “It’s a little-known talent of mine.” After a moment without a response he put on a big smile to dispel the awkward energy and asked, “What can I do for you, Keith, my man?”

Keith seemed to snap out of whatever reverie he was in and he lifted up the bundles in his arms to show Lance their contents. One was a gutted animal and one was a bunch of round objects carefully wrapped carefully in Keith’s old bandana. “I, uh… I went hunting. Killed some sort of animal and found some eggs. Hunk pulled some seasonings from the ship before we blew it blew up, so I was going to make breakfast this morning.”

Lance found himself salivating. He may actually end up with his wish of bacon and eggs, or at least something close to it. “Thank quiznak! Coran mentioned breakfast and I was honestly terrified that it was just going to be more of that food goo. Remember when Coran tried to make food goo pancakes and he almost blew up the kitchen?”

Keith visibly relaxed at being included in an inside joke. Lance would have to remember that for later – he understood that Keith had been under a significant amount of stress since the moment he returned to the team, but Keith seriously needed to unclench. If Lance had to literally recount every second of their misadventures of being paladins together to remind Keith that he belonged and get him to return to his normal self, so be it. It would be a long journey back to Earth. He had nothing but time.

“Yeah,” Keith chuckled. “I sometimes _still_ smell the scent of burnt food goo in my nightmares.”

Lance snorted, which lifted the corner of Keith’s mouth into a tiny smile. “We’d better keep Coran away from the food preparations then.” Lance hauled the milk bucket off the ground and lifted the handle over one forearm. “C’mon, Mullet.”

Each carrying their armfuls of food supplies, they made their way over to Coran’s fire, which by then was successfully lit. The crackling of the flames and the smell of the rich smoke gave Lance such a strong sense of longing for home that he went momentarily dizzy. _Soon_ , he told himself. _We'll be home soon_.

Coran’s voice brought him back to the present. “Hello, paladins! Looks like you’ve got quite a treasure trove there!”

Lance grinned at him. “Sure do! This is the makings of a perfect breakfast.”

Coran beamed. “I must say, even though we lost our home yesterday, I’m just thrilled that we’re all together. At least we all have each other, eh?” He wiped a tear from his eye and sighed happily. “Shiro was rescued, Keith found his mother, and we’re all together again. Let’s make this a celebratory meal! I will go wake everyone else!” With a skip in his step, Corah dashed off. Keith watched him go with a faint look of amusement.

Lance slapped a palm on Keith's shoulder. …His… surprisingly built... shoulder… and said teasingly, “Coran’s a treat. You _know_ you missed this while you were away.”

Much to Lance’s surprise, Keith returned his gaze with a genuine smile. “I did. I really, really did.”

Lance found that his voice was stuck in his throat for a solid minute before he finally managed to squeak out, “All right, come on. Let’s cook breakfast before Coran gets back. We don’t want him getting within ten feet of the food preparations.”

Keith’s smile never wavered. “Let’s do it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to be continued. <3


	3. Chapter 3

Keith loved cooking with Lance.

Lance was his usual chatterbox self, spouting off about stupid things that they had done in their early Paladin days and reminding him of all of the silly stories that he had nearly forgotten in his time away from the rest of the team. Like the time when Shiro accidentally locked himself in the bathroom in their third week on the ship and Keith had laughed so hard at him that he actually crumbled to the floor with tears streaming down his face. And the time when Lance and Pidge had done the classic bucket-of-water-in-the-door prank on Hunk, and then in retaliation, Hunk had rubbed garlic on Lance and Pidge’s toothbrushes and showed the footage of their facial expressions during their next movie night. Lance kept telling stories of their misadventures as Paladins until Keith’s abdominals hurt from laughing and he felt lighter than he had in years.

They settled into their familiar banter as the two of them prepared breakfast. Keith stripped the boar of its hide and began to cut it into thin strips to make it easier to fry in Coran’s frying pan while Lance mixed up their make-shift scrambled eggs mix: some of Kaltenecker’s milk, the eggs that Keith had found, and a few spices that Coran had left sitting by the fire. Lance hummed to himself while he held the pan over the flames, cooking the eggs and occasionally moving them around with a spatula.

It was all so startlingly domestic, even in the middle of a deserted planet thousands of lightyears from home.

“Hey, Keith…”

 “Yeah?”

Lance’s voice was quiet when he answered. “I’m glad you’re back.”

Keith smiled down at his task. “Thanks.”

“I mean, not that we couldn’t do it without you, because we’re a kick-ass team, but… yeah. We missed you.”

Against his own will, a crooked grin took over his face. “Oh yeah? Everyone did?”

“Oh, _yeah_. You wouldn’t believe how often Pidge talked about you. Hunk, too. Even Allura mentioned how much easier certain things would have been with you around a few times.”

Keith knew his grin was positively feral at this point, but he couldn’t help it – he loved pulling Lance’s pigtails. “What about you?”

“Me?”

“Yeah. Did you miss me?”

“…Yeah,” he said softly. “Probably the most out of everyone.” A soft blush crossed his face. “I mean… I was your right hand man, right?”

“Right.” Their eyes met once again and they shared an intimate smile.

They completed their breakfast preparations in comfortable silence.

 

Shiro was the first to wander out of their make-shift camp and make his way to the fire. Lance greeted him warmly, albeit a bit cautiously, and clapped him on the shoulder. “It’s good to see you up and around, man. We were all worried about you.”

Shiro gave him a lopsided smile. “Oh, you know me – I’m pretty tough. It takes more than dying to kill me.”

Keith snorted. “Ahhh, so the nihilistic humor is back. It really _is_ you.”

He got a lopsided smirk and an affectionate eyeroll in return. “Hey, Lance, I think Coran might need some help getting everyone up. Last I saw him, he was attempting to talk to Kaltenecker. Want to go check on him?”

Keith could easily see through his ruse, and he was pretty sure Lance could too, but he didn’t comment on it. Lance just shrugged good-naturedly. “Sure thing. I’ll go get him back on track.”

As soon as Lance was out of earshot, Shiro turned to Keith with a kind smile on his face and a warm look in his eye. “You’ve gotten taller.”

The night before, when Allura had restored Shiro’s consciousness into the clone’s body, Shiro had passed out almost immediately. Aside from shuffling Shiro off to bed and coaxing him to sleep, it was the first time he had interacted with Shiro, the _real_ Shiro, since he had disappeared from the Black Lion a year ago. Keith suddenly felt at a loss about what to say.

“Yeah.”

“And your hair. It’s longer.”

Keith reached up to self-consciously paw at his dark locks. “Yeah, I… I guess I could have cut it with my knife or something, but…. I just didn’t.”

Shiro motioned towards the ground and Keith followed his lead, sitting next to him by the fire. “Keith, I… I need to apologize. For what he said to you that day.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I know, but… I know it wasn’t me, but he used my face and my position as your brother and your leader in order to hurt you. So I feel like I need to apologize anyway.”

Keith fixed his gaze firmly into the fire. “It’s fine.”

A comfortingly heavy hand fell on Keith’s shoulder. “It’s not.”

“Quit apologizing,” he muttered. “It wasn’t even your fault.”

“I’m not saying it was my fault, because it wasn’t. What I _am_ saying is that he was wrong. You aren’t worthless. You are my brother, and I love you, and it was an honest privilege to raise you. I wouldn’t trade knowing you for anything in the world, no matter what we’ve both been through.” Shiro huffed and ran his hand through his white hair. “I know you, Keith, and it must have been jarring to see someone who looks and sounds like me say all of those things to you. I’m sorry that this happened to you. I don’t think you’re worthless, and I’d never abandon you. I’d die all over again, just to protect you. You didn’t deserve any of what he said to you, and I am here to help you recover from it in whatever way you need.”

Keith’s eyes widened in surprise. He hadn’t heard Shiro sound like that in…

…Wait.

All of those times – all of those moments when Shiro didn’t feel quite right – they suddenly made sense. When he gave Keith a cold look and insisted that he remain in the Black Lion in spite of Keith’s objections, telling him that it was just his “part to play” in the war effort. The frown on his face at mission briefings. The all-too-calculated decision making. The lack of warmth in his eyes. It all made so much sense now.

That wasn’t his brother.

He knew that a part of himself would have to mourn for the experiences that he’d had, but for now, all he felt was relief. _This_ was his brother. _This_ was the man who had raised him.

Keith allowed himself to fall sideways onto Shiro’s shoulder. “I’m so glad you’re back,” he murmured, hoping that it did a good enough job of explaining exactly how he felt in that moment. He didn’t think anyone could blame him for shoving his face into Shiro’s arm to hide the tears gathering in his eyes. The day had already been an emotional rollercoaster, and the sun hadn’t even fully risen yet.

Shiro just pulled Keith closer and tucked his head under his chin. “It’s good to be back.”


	4. Chapter 4

_[The camera focuses and the torso of a dark-skinned, dark-haired boy wearing an unsure smile is revealed. The boy opens his mouth to speak several times before closing it again. He clears his throat, tears up, wipes his eyes, and clears his throat again. Finally, he speaks.]_

_“Hi, mom. I don’t know what the Garrison told you, but… I’m alive. I really… I don’t know how to even explain to you where I am or where I’ve been. Talk to Sam Holt, the guy who gave you this message, and he can fill you in on a lot of what has happened, but… I just want you to know that leaving was an accident, okay? I didn’t know, that day, what was going to happen, I… I didn’t know how long I would be gone. Even now, I don’t know how long I’ve been gone, I-”_

_[He chokes on a sob and pushes his dark bangs out of his face.]_

_“I-I wish I could have gotten the chance to say goodbye. I don’t know when I’m going to see you again, mama, and I… I don’t know when I’ll be coming home. But I just wanted you to know that I am alive, and I love you, and I’m thinking about you guys every single day.”_

_[He takes a deep breath and sighs heavily, putting his forehead in his hands. When he speaks again, he does so while staring down at the floor.]_

_“I am a soldier now, mom. I wish you could see how good I’ve gotten. I’m doing things I could have never dreamed about. I’m defending the universe alongside some of the best people I’ve ever met. This has been a crazy whirlwind, and I’m experiencing things that nobody else on Earth has ever experienced before. But sometimes I just want to give it all up. Sometimes, I just want to come home.”_

_[The boy chuckles and sits up, spine straight, looking every bit like the soldier he described himself as.]_

_“But I can’t. I promise to come home as soon as it is safe. We just don’t want to put Earth in danger by going anywhere near it right now. There’s a war going on out here, mama; a war bigger than I could have ever imagined, and I’m one of the major players in it. I swear I wouldn’t have stayed away for so long if it wasn’t important, so please don’t be too mad at me for leaving. I just… I’m doing it for you. For all of you. Anyway. I just wanted to let you know that I’m okay. I wanted to let you know what happened to me, in case… you know. You never know out here.”_

_[The boy puts on a brave, if not slightly wobbly, smile.]_

_“Give the twins a hug for me, and tell Veronica to stop beating herself up about my disappearance. You know I’m too stubborn to listen to anything she says anyways, and I know how she thinks. I know she was never wild about the idea of me going to the Garrison in the first place – too much of a risk, she always said; space travel is a death wish – but… it hasn’t been so bad. There have been a few close calls mama, I won’t lie to you, but I’ve got a pretty awesome team watching my back, and a giant sentient robotic lion to protect me. I’ll make it home safe, but until then…”_

_[The boy leans forward, smiling directly into the camera once again.]_

_“Take care, mama. This is Lance McClain, pilot of the Red Lion, signing out.”_

 

If there was anything that had surprised Lance during their little adventure in space - and there have been many things that have - the thing that surprised him the most was just how much darkness exists in the universe.

He didn’t mean metaphorical evil “darkness”, either; he meant literal _darkness_. The absence of light. There was _so much space_ between each celestial body. When he was lying in the warm, soft sand on Veradero beach and staring up at the stars, they looked deceptively close together. There were mere millimeters between each pinprick of light.  It wasn’t until he was in the vastness of space, floating from planet to planet, that you realize just how empty space actually is.

Of course he knew how empty it was, in a removed, scientific sort of way. He wasn’t taking classes at the Garrison for nothing, after all. But seeing it firsthand really hammered it home. Before the castle-ship was destroyed, Lance would spend hours on the stargazing deck in the middle of the night, just staring out into the vast emptiness, observing the space between himself and the closest sun, wondering how many more of those spaces filled the distance between himself and _his own_ sun.

He had blocked it all out most of the time. On a day to day basis, he couldn’t operate to the fullest extent that he was expected to if he was constantly falling apart about missing Earth. For a variety of reasons, he had become an expert in the art of self-delusion at that point in his life, so convincing himself not to think about it didn’t take much effort. It wasn’t until he had the chance to send a message home with Sam Holt, to actually tell his family that he was still alive and that he missed them, that he actually started thinking about it again outside of the private moments he spent stargazing at 3 am.

It had taken him a while to even work up the courage to film the message to send to his family. He briefly considered not even sending one, but when he pictured the look on his mama’s face when Hunk’s moms got a message and his didn’t and she assumed the worst, he decided it was a necessity. So, he sat down and filmed it all in one go.

Months later, he honestly couldn’t even remember what all he had said in the message. During his nap that afternoon, he had dreamed up a close version of it, probably skewed by his memory and feeling a little awkward, but it didn’t matter much what the content was, he figured. His mom just wanted to see that he was alive. And soon, she would see him in person.

This thought carried him out of his uncomfortable cot in the Blue Lion and gave him the strength to stretch his aching back, put on his shoes, and amble down the ramp of his lion.

 

Before they blew up the castle-ship, Coran had salvaged several vats of food goo. As much as Lance had wanted to grumble when he learned of this, he also admired Coran’s foresight. They hadn’t been sure when they would reach another planet that could sustain life, not to mention friendly one, so having a stock of food handy was a smart thing indeed.

It didn’t make the goo seem any more appetizing, however.

Keith, probably just as disillusioned by the food goo and dreading its return into his life as Lance was, volunteered to hunt.

Now, contrary to popular belief, Lance wasn’t _actually_ an idiot. He may have _acted_ like an idiot sometimes, but that doesn’t mean that he _was_ one. He was perfectly aware of his attraction to Keith, and he was equally aware that it had started long before he was willing to admit out loud. He had never explicitly owned up to the label of “bisexual”, but he was self-aware enough to know that straight dudes just didn’t look at other dudes in the same way that Lance occasionally did. And… hey, Lance was only human, alright? Keith had already been a pretty fine-looking boy before he left the team, and then when he came back looking all big and buff and sexy? Well. Whatever label Lance owned before that moment had needed to be explicitly tossed out, because Lance had _never_ felt this level of attraction to _anyone, ever_.

And it didn’t help that he actually _liked_ Keith. You know, as a person. As much as it had pissed him off, he had also been drawn in by his mysterious persona. What he had once mistaken as aloofness due to superiority had turned out to be Keith keeping to himself because he was simply used to being alone. Once Lance got past his prickly exterior, he was actually a pretty cool dude, social awkwardness aside.

And as it turns out, he was also _really_ fun to fuck with. There was just something about him that made Lance immediately regress into a primary school mindset and he wanted nothing more in life than to pull Keith’s metaphorical pigtails on the metaphorical playground.

So, when Keith volunteered to hunt, Lance decided that he _absolutely_ had to witness this event firsthand. You know. For posterity.

And if he could find a way to get Keith riled up in the process, even better.

**Author's Note:**

> Like I said in the intro notes, I intend to continue this, as long as there's enough interest! 
> 
> Things I plan to address in this fic:  
> \- Lance's unrequited feelings for Allura and Pidge and Hunk's insensitivity towards his heartbreak in season six  
> \- Lance's guilt over not understanding what the real Shiro was saying on the astral plane and his fresh wounds over the fake Shiro yelling at him  
> \- Keith feeling "different" from the rest of the paladins due to his two years away and his process of relaxing and learning to laugh and feel light again  
> \- Lance's latent feelings for Keith and Keith's reawakening feelings for Lance  
> \- Where the frick is Matt  
> \- The long journey back to Earth
> 
> Please leave me a comment if you want to see this continued! Comments only take a moment, but they give me so much life. <3


End file.
